


Time Capsule

by rabidchild67



Series: Origins [3]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-11
Updated: 2012-09-11
Packaged: 2017-11-14 01:10:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/509716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabidchild67/pseuds/rabidchild67
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neal searches for answers in his past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time Capsule

“Don’t let me down, buddy, OK?” Neal said, wagging a finger at Bugsy. The dog snorted and began to lick himself, the bulk of Neal’s tracking anklet slightly hindering his efforts. Neal smiled and headed out the door.

He made his way to the subway, planning the route in his head that would get him there. An hour later he walked out of the station and onto the streets of his boyhood hometown. He looked around at the buildings; they’d seemed so large when he was young.

It was a short walk to his destination. The building was condemned – it and the whole block the latest victims of urban renewal; a luxury hotel and shopping complex was slated to begin construction in the Spring. He blew past the fencing around the perimeter with barely a pause to pick the padlocks and was inside the building and climbing the stairs to apartment 315 in under five minutes.

The door wasn’t locked, but he couldn’t help but pause on the threshold before entering. He hadn’t been here in more than 20 years, not since they took his mother away in a body bag, a victim of her own demons. He glanced up at ceiling; the beams from which he’d found her hanging lifeless had been covered by an ugly drop ceiling. He sighed.

Neal moved to the small bedroom at the back of the apartment, remembering his life there. His boyhood bed, the Transformers bedding, Legos, paints and pastels and sketchbooks. Even as a boy he had a drive to create.

He crossed to the far wall, removed his pocket knife and pried a section of the baseboard away from the plaster. It came away without much effort. He reached in and removed a plastic box from inside the wall; its bright yellow color had dulled over the years. Standing, he noted the faded, hand-lettered paper slipped into the plastic sleeve on the top: “Neal Caffrey, Grade 4, Mrs. Benedict.” He ran his fingers over it, smiling; it had started life as a pencil box. He opened the lid.

Inside were the lost treasures of a nine-year-old he barely remembered, one who was relatively carefree, bright, happy, with his whole life in front of him. Matchbox cars. A deck of cards – he’d been obsessed with sleight of hand even at that age. A math test on which he’d gotten 100. A mass card from his grandfather’s funeral. The tags from his first dog, Lady. A picture of him and his mother taken on his first day of kindergarten. 

Since Kate’s death, Neal had found himself dwelling on his past, reflecting on the choices that had brought him to that point. It was a strange compulsion for him of all people, having never been the type to look back, to regret the road not taken. But now it was almost all he could think about: if he could identify the exact point where his life had put him on this path, then he could somehow understand it all, illuminate it with meaning, give him that bullshit, a-ha moment of clarity where it all made sense.

Rationally, he knew it was more complicated. That he was who he was not just because of the choices he’d made, but because of the ones forced on him by the circumstances of his life. A mother who’d left him too soon; an absentee father who viewed Neal’s artistic talent as his next meal ticket; the allure of art, and luxury, and easy money.

“Shit,” he muttered, running a hand over his eyes, swiping away unwanted tears. Why had he even come here? Did he think he’d find his answer in a box of childish mementos? No. But he found he needed them just the same. He closed the lid on the box, took one last look around and left.

Later, he sat at the table in his loft, the contents of the box spread before him like puzzle pieces, head down on his outstretched arm, absentmindedly moving one of the toy cars back and forth with his index finger. He felt rather than heard Peter behind him – when had he arrived? – and snapped out of his reverie.

“What’s all this?” Peter asked, his voice low, neutral. He swung around the table and took the seat at its head.

“Nothing. Junk.” Neal started placing everything back in the box.

Peter stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “No, it’s not. It means something to you.”

“Pieces of someone else’s life,” Neal muttered, not able to meet Peter’s eyes. He pulled his arm away.

“Whose?”

“Another person. Another… me.” He looked up then, jaw set, eyes wide. “Can we forget it?”

“No. What are you looking for here? In all of this stuff?”

“I’d rather not talk about it.”

“I’d rather not either, but we need to. Come on, Neal, let me in. What are you looking for?”

Neal looked away, seemed on the verge of speaking for several minutes, and finally said, “If I’d made different choices, Kate would be alive. And so I guess I needed this stuff to remind me of when it happened, exactly.”

“When what happened?”

“When I went bad.”

Peter sat up, back straight in his chair and gave Neal a hard look, his eyebrows knitting together. Neal visibly flinched under his gaze. “You’re not bad, Neal. You occasionally do the wrong thing, but you are not a bad person. You know that, right?”

“Not always, no.”

Peter leaned forward, put a hand on Neal’s shoulder. "Well, next time you get to thinking that way, promise to call me and I’ll remind you.”

Neal smiled, but he had already decided he wouldn’t. It was too much trust, too soon.

“So, where’d you get all this stuff, anyway?” Peter asked.

Neal glanced over at the dog, snoring away on his bed. “Um, a friend helped me get it.”

\----

Thank you for your time

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote before Point Blank aired, if you can believe it, otherwise I'd have figured out another way for Neal to be off-anklet, LOL.


End file.
